Scotland Yard may have allowed alleged child abuse to continue for as long as seven years by failing to share accusations against Thomas Markle with the FBI, according to a former senior police officer.
The Metropolitan Police has acknowledged that it took no action after receiving a 2019 letter alleging that the Duchess of Sussex’s father was a paedophile.
Jim Gamble, the former head of the National Crime Agency’s child exploitation command, said British detectives have an established process for passing serious allegations to overseas law enforcement bodies.
He said it was “really difficult to understand” why that procedure was not used in this case, particularly because the letter reportedly suggested that children could be at risk.
Mr Markle, 82, strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Gamble said that if investigations in the Philippines and by the FBI ultimately lead to someone being held responsible, “there’s seven years during which children will have potentially continued to suffer abuse”.
He also questioned why the Met considered the allegations credible enough to pass them to the Duchess of Sussex, yet did not share them with other relevant law enforcement agencies.
“I would have expected them to prioritise an assessment with regard to the safeguarding and child protection issues that seem to have been included in [the letter],” he said.
Jim Gamble questioned why the Met Police did not share the serious allegations against Thomas Markle with the FBI in 2019
Thomas Markle, the Duchess of Sussex’s father, denies any wrongdoing
Meghan has been estranged from her father since at least 2018
Mr Gamble said police should normally share information about an alleged threat to children when it involves someone connected to another country.
“I would have expected the Metropolitan Police to have gone to the FBI to say, ‘Look, this isn’t proven, it’s an allegation, you might want to look at it.’ Because in America, they may have more information that could corroborate it,” he said.
NEXT UP: 15-Year-Old Held in FAMU Party Shooting That Hurt 11, Including Kids
He added that the information should also have been sent to the National Crime Agency, which maintains international links with police forces in countries including the United States, the Philippines, Thailand and Mexico.
The Metropolitan Police said it is now considering whether its handling of the matter should be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for review.
Mr Gamble said an independent investigation into the force was “absolutely necessary”.
“There’s a serious question to be asked about the process here,” he said. “It’s not just about administration, it’s about children having an extended exposure to an individual, if it’s proven, who represented a risk.”
The letter sent to the Met in 2019 is alleged to have been written by Roslyn Loveless, Mr Markle’s former wife and the mother of his children Samantha and Thomas. She died in 2024.
Samantha Markle, 61, has said that if her late mother did write the letter, it was motivated by “hatred and bitterness”. She has also accused her mother of being an alcoholic and said she was “not credible”.
Mr Markle and Ms Loveless divorced in 1975, four years before he met Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother.
Meghan and her father have been estranged since at least 2018 when she married Prince Harry. Their relationship broke down after he admitted staging paparazzi photos of himself prior to the wedding.
The Duchess wrote to him last December after his leg was amputated in the Philippines, allegedly telling him he posed a risk to children and would never be allowed to meet his grandchildren Archie and Lilibet.
On Friday, police in the Philippines revealed they were investigating Mr Markle, 82, over claims he had ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of child sexual abuse images, including an image of himself allegedly having sex with an underage girl.
The Philippines’ interior minister Jonvic Remulla said Mr Markle appeared to be ‘a possible sex offender of the grossest kind’ and the country planned to take ‘appropriate legal actions’ against him.
Mr Markle has denied any wrongdoing, admitting he paid for sex in the Philippines but insisting it was only with adult prostitutes.
